Novels by Nara Gina

For Freza, a large family wedding was a simulation of hell wrapped in champagne-colored decorative tents and the scent of beef rendang with far too much galangal. It was a battlefield where the bullets were foul small talk and the landmines were questions about the future tossed by people who didn't even know the difference between burnout and just being lazy.That morning, Freza stood in front of the mirror, trying to straighten his only batik shirt—an inheritance from his late grandfather that was a bit too large in the shoulders, making him look like a walking clothes hanger."I can't lose today," Freza muttered, staring at his haggard reflection. "I’ve survived breathing crises, I’ve outlasted power poles, and I’ve defeated insurance bots. These aunties are just mid-level mini-bosses."Satya, who for some reason was always in Freza’s boarding house room like a resident ghost, was busy eating the last of the canned crackers. "You sure you want to go, Fre? You know Aunt Mira will be

Freza’s phone screen displayed a white circle spinning endlessly against a black background. That buffering symbol, to Freza, was the equivalent of a meditative mandala or a religious symbol demanding absolute devotion. He sat frozen on the edge of the bed, hands clutching his pants pockets, eyes unblinking.He was waiting for a video titled “How to Get Out of Bed Without Losing Positive Energy (Millennial Burnout Edition)” to finish loading.“Come on, Indihome... not now,” Freza whispered hoarsely. His throat was dry, but he didn’t dare take a drink yet because he hadn't watched the video “Tutorial: How to Drink Mineral Water So the Minerals Are 100% Absorbed into Your Brain Cells” that he’d saved in his Watch Later list.Freza had reached a stage where he no longer trusted his biological instincts. To him, instinct was something primitive and inefficient. Why rely on instincts already broken by stress and instant noodles when there were millions of “experts” on YouTube and TikTok re

Freza’s brain felt like an old PC in a suburban internet cafe that hadn't been cleaned in ten years; full of digital dust, thousands of accidentally opened tabs, and shortcut viruses that made everything look like a shortcut to insanity.After the embarrassing incident of falling in love with a utility pole because of an AR filter, Freza reached a radical conclusion usually only made by the bored rich or environmental activists living in trees: technology is the enemy of civilization. He felt the dopamine in his brain was scorched, burned away by endless scrolling on TikTok and petty arguments about chicken porridge on Twitter."I have to stop, Sat. I need to return to the true nature of humans as biological beings, not algorithmic creatures," Freza said solemnly, as if he had just received a revelation from a burning bush.Satya, who was preoccupied watching a video of someone popping pimples in macro resolution on his phone, merely grunted, "Hm, your true nature is lying around doin

The mirror in Freza’s boarding house room was his most honest arch-nemesis. This morning, it displayed the figure of a twenty-five-year-old man with eye bags large enough to store spare change, dull skin from consuming far too much phone screen radiation, and a giant zit on the tip of his nose that looked like a volcano primed to erupt at any moment."I’m not ugly," Freza whispered to his own reflection. "I’m just low on the budget for a glow-up. I’m a diamond still covered in sewer mud."Ia tried to smile, but what appeared in the mirror was a desperate grimace that looked more like the symptoms of a minor stroke. After a string of failures—from being a "CEO of thin air" to being accused of cat exploitation—Freza’s self-confidence was at rock bottom, perhaps even boring through the Earth's crust. In a world obsessed with visuals, Freza felt like a broken pixel in the middle of a 4K resolution image.Suddenly, his door was kicked open. Satya walked in with a beaming face, holding an e

Sunday for an unemployed person like Freza wasn’t a day of rest, but rather a day where existential pressure reached its peak. While others were busy posting aesthetic brunch photos or jogging at the Car Free Day with sneakers that cost as much as a monthly motorcycle payment, Freza usually just lay sprawled on his bed, staring at water stains on the ceiling that looked more and more like a warning letter from the bank every day.That morning, Freza’s stomach growled with a very demanding tone. After rummaging through the pockets of a pair of jeans that hadn't been washed in two weeks, he found a crumpled ten-thousand rupiah bill that was so shriveled it almost resembled a fossil. With that meager capital, he dragged his feet toward the chicken porridge vendor at the end of the alley.There, he sat on a slightly tilted plastic stool. In front of him, a middle-aged man was stirring his porridge with immense enthusiasm, mixing the soybeans, celery, crackers, and yellow broth into a sing

Loneliness is a kind of non-lethal disease, but it makes you feel like spinach that has been reheated five times: limp, pale, and completely unwanted.After being physically battered from his stint as an "Influencer via the Path of Hate," Freza was now suffering from a deeper wound: an existential one. At twenty-five, he realized that the only long-term relationship he possessed was with his mobile carrier, which routinely sent him texts saying, "Your remaining data is almost depleted.""I need a connection, Sat. Not an intermittent Wi-Fi signal, but a connection between souls," Freza complained while staring at his studio apartment's ceiling, which was now sprouting a new patch of mold shaped like the silhouette of his mother’s disappointed face.Satya, who was busy cleaning the dirt from under his fingernails with an expired ATM card, snorted. "Your soul is already cluttered with junk cache, Fre. What other soul would want to sync with that? Besides, looking for a partner the organi